Running the Asylum
by TheMoonAlwaysFalls
Summary: The purpose of the Batman is to instill fear in the hearts of evildoers. This is starting to become exceedingly more difficult as Bruce Wayne's personal and professional life begin to wage war against one another. - Multiple pairings, violence, lots of brooding.
1. The Prince of Gotham, Ch 1

_No man suffers injustice without learning, vaguely but surely, what justice is. ~ Isaac Rosenfeld_

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**Preemptive A/N**: Check the end of the chapter for more notes. You can do that now if you want an explanation before you decide to read, or you can wait. That's the beauty of stories. The words are always right where you leave them.

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**Bruce Wayne/Batman**

Fear is something felt by all men.

The concept of the Batman was based on the concept of fear. Every part of the legend is based upon Bruce Wayne's fears and their subsequent defeat. The Batsuit is the culmination of trials faced in overcoming fear - the Batman's armor is his resolve, solid and unyielding. His gadgets are his innovation - how fear is felt and who feels what because surely all men have fears. His skill instills the fear he learned so well, and brings justice to the unscrupulous.

The Batman is fear itself, personified into a man who is no longer a man in the eyes of his peers. The Batman is a legend of fear. The Batman does not feel fear.

Bruce Wayne, on the other hand, is no stranger to fear.

At that very moment, Bruce stood at the podium situated in front of city hall, surrounded by a crowd of thousands waiting to hear him speak. It was not often that he became nervous helming a crowd, having grown up in the public eye – of course, it wasn't often that he was helming a crowd as a politician. After three months of vehement campaigning, he still couldn't really convince himself that he was a true politician; he wasn't nearly cutthroat enough. He just hoped that the crowd couldn't see the trickle of sweat dripping down his cheek.

Bruce swiped at his face with the back of his hand. He was made up impeccably, completely decked out in his everyday Armani armor and expertly coifed hair – a perfect façade for the cameras and the yammering reporters and the other various interested parties and media whores. He was an expert on the subject of masks, _the _expert as a matter of fact, and his suit and tie and gelled hair was just another one of them.

The crowd meandered into place, mumbling and grumbling, some glaring up at him, some staring with awe-struck gazes at the Prince of Gotham. One lady picked her nose while her bored son fiddled with his iPhone and his earbuds. Another woman was doing her makeup, looking mightily tired (he could clearly see the bags under her eyes, even with the extra layer of makeup she was coating on). Some of the attendees were college students armed with tablets of both the electronic and stationary variety – probably political science or communications majors. The reporters were obvious: their hair was freshly fluffed and they all waved tape recorders at the stage.

Since the inception of the Arkham City plan, Bruce had been doing everything his status and power allowed him to do to fight the construction of the expansive prison. The masses believed that throwing all the criminals in one place together and letting them kill each other was a great idea - Bruce knew better. The masses could hardly digest the mass overload of meaningless data shoved at them daily; they were so deluded that a simple matter of common sense was widely and controversially debated as a totally outrageous issue.

As Bruce had attempted to explain to the masses, Arkham City presented a wonderful opportunity for the scum of the streets and killers of Gotham City to band together into something more than factions of thugs. The supercriminals, of course, were easily smart enough to figure this out - it would be the first order of business for them, and they would be at the forefront of the revolution. Joker would have his boys back from Blackgate, Black Mask already had his hand in the black market and the prison hadn't even been officially sanctioned yet, the Penguin would hole up in the Iceberg Lounge and dish out orders; it was a predictably bad idea. Every as-of-yet unaffiliated inmate of Blackgate would be snatched up into the fold faster than a bee could fart, or would be killed without a second thought (depending on who he or she was affiliated with, it could be both).

It obviously didn't help that Quincy Sharp was pushing for the sanctioning just as hard as Bruce was pushing against it. The mayor of Gotham was up against the richest man in town, probably in the whole country. So far, the campaign had consisted of a lot of ugly back-and-forth tactics that mostly entailed the attacking of each other's character and morals and attempts to convince the masses of the 'right decision.'

_"In the past twelve years, the crime rate of Gotham has dropped significantly, due to the efforts of the renovated police department and the vigilante known as Batman. However, while the rate of crime has dropped, the types of crimes committed and the criminals committing have gotten exponentially smarter. Allowing the Arkham City prison to be opened would lead to a mass coalition of the most dangerous criminals Gotham City has ever encountered – criminals that our boys in blue have worked to apprehend and separate from society."_

All the cheap back and forth bitching was the main reason why Bruce hated politics. He couldn't see how paying for adds to slander his reputation could possibly be a good use for Quincy Sharp's backing money - he should be saving that for when he's up for reelection, if he could even get reelected. Of course, Bruce had more than enough resources to fire back at the shit storm Sharp's people had cooked up – he didn't start the fire himself.

Bruce had tried, really, honestly tried to stay away from the slander tactics. In Gotham, though, slander tactics were the best bet if a politician didn't resort to extortion and bribery. He was still regarded as a playboy, and as the Prince of Gotham, everyone seemed to have a tale to tell to fuel the never-ending deluge of negative campaign adds. He had illegitimate children popping up everywhere (which wasn't true because he kept a close tally of his intimate encounters for that reason alone), he had angry models and actresses coming after him – hell, he apparently even kicked puppies for fun.

So, in an effort to connect with the good people of Gotham, Bruce added his own brand of fuel to the flame – attempts to discredit Quincy Sharp's reputation as warden and mayor. Discrediting his reputation wasn't hard. After all, the hostile takeover of Arkham Asylum had happened under his watch – never mind that the Joker was basically a certifiable evil genius.

"_Mayor Sharp of all people should be fully aware of the capabilities of some of the more infamous inmates. He was personally responsible for many of the goings-on of the inmates of Arkham Asylum in that he turned his head to the obvious. This is one case in which the inmates really were running the asylum."_

There were a few giggles, mostly awkward chuckles and shifty eyes questioning whether it was okay to laugh at authority.

Arkham Asylum was still open, somehow. Most of the buildings were still overrun with Poison Ivy's plants, but the few that were not infested still housed the most dangerous criminals until something could be done about them. Blackgate wasn't equipped to handle the loonies, so they had to stay in the hospitable areas of the facility. The island had to close though, and was on its way out thanks to a group of do-gooders who couldn't stand to see even the scum of creation suffer in squalor.

So the Mansion itself now housed all of the inmates, dangerous or not. Besides the Mansion, the only other building still functional was the Medical Center, but it had been cordoned off in vast areas. The left wing was still operational, so that the doctors and staff could have offices and examination rooms. Patients were seen with somewhere decent regularity.

Due to the exorbitant number of deaths, the asylum foundation was suffering from a huge staff shortage, and as of yet was begging the hospitals and jails of Gotham to send doctors, nurses, and guards in rotation. Unfortunately, the city itself had shortages of those professions, so very few facilities could afford to send their employees off even for this short-term contract work.

"_All of these supercriminals have an immeasurable capacity for crime and destruction – many also have an awfully good business sense. Allowing these criminals to be housed in the same facility with what amounts to comparative freedom gives them the opportunity to band together."_

Down in front, one of the more vociferous reports called out, "To do what exactly? They'll be surrounded by a giant wall and guards with helicopters and guns. It sounds like a blessing for the rest of us. Let them kill each other off!"

The attendees murmured their agreements, splitting the crowd with negative energy. The distaste many citizens had for his position on the opening of Arkham City was tangible; people fidgeted and took notes and clucked their tongues. Bruce kept with the pace, never deviating from his speech. Reporters catcalled and the crowd rumbled with dissention. Over to his left, one of his handlers wiped nervously at his forehead.

"_Allowing these criminal to band together will give them the opportunity to expand and specialize and innovate, which will endanger the lives of the men and women working to keep the criminals in check. This in turn gives the inmates of Arkham a window to overcome the authority placed within the prison. We must not forget that many of the criminals have genius-level intelligence, and will not hesitate to do whatever they can to maintain and regain contact with the outside world._"

The crowd's opposition was palpable now, as the fringes were beginning to disperse and head back into the routine of their daily lives. Many of them could care less about the cause Bruce was arguing – they came simply to see the Prince of Gotham stand before the common people. The faces of the crowd had changed from interested to uncaring, yet those who understood the dangers stayed put. Some attendees wanted to watch him fall flat on his face. Some wanted to hear them out – some recognized his mask and saw him for more than he appeared to be.

Bruce shuffled his notes, taking a cue from his handler that it was time to get the hell out of Dodge and brace for the impact of the reporters' questions. The microphone's woofer was dampened by the condensation of his breath; he'd nearly had to chew on the mike to get it to pick of his voice. Thanking the crowd as cordially as he could muster, he left the stand and stalked down the fall-away steps placed at the side of the stage.

Bruce felt a hand on his shoulder – the damp digits of his ever-perspiring handler squeezed his shoulder none-too-gently, steering him away from the crowd and around to the back of city hall. Unscheduled interviews were bad for publicity because they amplified the chance of him saying something stupid or having his comments misconstrued by the reporter. The handler really needn't have worried – Bruce had a carefully calculated tongue. He didn't say stupid things accidently.

Behind him, a distinctly female (and rather familiar) voice called out to him, businesslike and curt. "Mr. Wayne!"

Bruce turned, an eyebrow raised, but every bit the concerned philanthropist-turned-politician he presented himself as. A petite blonde woman was click-clacking her way over to him and pushing past a couple of muscled-up guards who could probably use her as a toothpick. The purple power suit framing her compact body was wrinkled from the closeness of the crowd. She smoothed the creases out with her free hand. In her other hand, she held a notepad – a good, old-fashioned tree-killing notepad - and blue fountain pen. She was brandishing the notepad in front of her like a weapon.

Vicki Vale was certainly something else.

As the only notable female reporter at the _Gotham City Gazette_, Vicki Vale was usually the first one on the scene of any big spectacle. It figures that she would be at this press conference being that the main opponent of the prison sanctioning was Bruce Wayne. Unlike many of the other reporters, she was mistrustful of the motives behind Arkham City and the appointed figure of Hugo Strange. This, she shared in common with the Prince of Gotham.

Bruce smiled and nodded his head, twisting his body in the reporter's direction. He held out his hand for her to shake. She grasped his hand; his palm dwarfed hers easily. "What can I do for you, Miss Vale?"

The expression of surprise on her face told Bruce that she had doubted he would deign to speak to her. She tugged her hand back and smoothed down the non-existent wrinkles of the hem of her blazer again. Really, the miniscule amount of faith Gotham had in him was disconcerting. So he ran around with models and actresses and bought hotels for fun – he had _manners_ for goodness sake.

Vale flipped open the notepad almost all the way to the back cover. "Mr. Wayne, I'd really like to ask you a few questions about the opening of Arkham City."

Well, what else would she be asking about? Breakfast?

Bruce nodded again, mirroring her curt manner. "Of course. Fire away."

Vale inhaled forcefully, as if trying to draw more buoyancy into her voice from the air. Her sweet, high voice was all power and confidence. "I've attempted to get in contact with Mayor Sharp, but he refuses to return any of my calls and has denied all requests for an interview."

"Go on."

She drew a small tape recorder out of her blazer pocket. "Off the record here, I have fully aligned myself with your position on the matter. It strikes me as fishy that the Mayor is pushing so hard for the sanctioning of this new prison, so I'd like to extend the opportunity to have your views on the matter more formally presented to the public."

Reporters presented themselves as a special kind of disgusting. Bruce had been subjected to reporters all his life, basically from the day he was born. He wasn't called the Price of Gotham for nothing – every aspect of his public life was exploited and documented and twisted to suit the needs of the media. He had been around reporters long enough to know that they wanted facts, just not _all_ of the facts. In his experiences, they usually gathered the bare minimum needed to twist the truth into a pathetic facsimile of realism.

Conversely though, and to be entirely truthful, Bruce Wayne rather liked Vicki Vale. While she was still a reporter, and she still took his information and twisted it around to serve the needs of her point, she gathered as much information as possible to make sure that she full understood and presented the situation. No stone was left unturned. She hit hard, and where she struck was never far from the mark.

"I will answer your questions to the best of my abilities," he interjected cordially, hooking his hands together behind his back.

Vale clicked the top button of her tape recorder and held it in the center of the space between them. "Mayor Sharp has demonstrated a definite drive to sanction Arkham City, but he's presented alarming inconsistency in his facts in the very few public appearances that he's made. Why do you think he's been inconsistent?"

Bruce felt his handler's fingers tighten on his shoulder again. He brushed them away without a second thought. "I think that maybe he's speaking for more than just his own interests. He's got financial backers to think about."

"And his backers probably have conflicting interests," Vale continued, homing in on the next step of the speculation. "Yes, that would explain the inconsistencies. Do you know who any of his backers are? Anyone he may be speaking for?"

Bruce shook his head. "I can't say that I know anything about Mayor Sharp's financial records."

"How about you then, Mr. Wayne? Are you speaking for your own interests or did you have to accumulate financial backers as well?

This time the handler's fingers were digging into his elbow, and the sounds of protest were issuing forth from the sweaty man's equally damp lips. They had to leave, he said. No time for reporters now, there was a meeting at Wayne Corp. He had to be there in ten minutes.

And of course he was speaking for his own interests. The people of Gotham were his interests, and keeping them safe was his main priority. (Plus, if it made Batman's job a little easier, who was he to complain?)

"I am speaking from my own interests," Bruce replied. The insistent fingers tugged once again at his elbow, and he shook them off for the final time. "I hate to cut our interview short, Miss Vale, but I have another meeting to attend."

Vale tapped the top button of her recorder again. A tiny _pop _issued forth from the plastic. "Well, thank you very much for your time, Mr. Wayne. It was a pleasure to meet you."

Purple really _was_ a flattering color on her.

"How about we continue this interview another time?" Bruce asked, flashing his most charming smile. That smile had gotten him into the hearts and beds of many a beautiful woman. "Tomorrow night, for instance? Say eight o'clock?"

Vale rolled her eyes, but Bruce caught the tiniest hint of a smirk pulling at her pink-painted lips. "If you insist, Mr. Wayne."

He winked at her, and this time let himself be steered towards the black car idling next to the curb. "I'll pick you up at seven-thirty."

Vicki Vale waved him off, smiling.

* * *

Most of this part of the city was condemned.

Batman sailed over the rooftop of the old industrial Steel Mill. The dilapidated mill was a behemoth that he remembered as being a total rust bucket from his own childhood; he had never seen it functional, never even seen a single light blazing in the windows. He remembered the lurid black smoke that sometimes boiled up from the funnels on the rooftop and spit out into the sky, but it still never actually functioned.

The mill was behind him now, little more than a rank old haunt. He circled around the Ferris wheel that had long since gone out of business and closed – too many health risks associated with a Ferris wheel next to an industrial mill, he supposed. Well, that, and a couple of guys had jumped off the top – that was a real downer for business. He stretched his arms out as far as the cape would allow him to go and dipped down. He landed on a cart that didn't look too terribly fragile and was just high enough to still tower over the rooftops below.

Below him, a shadow moved.

"How'd the conference go?"

Batman peered down over the edge of the cart, steadying himself as the roof shook beneath his feet. The next cart down was rather more fragile, but then again, the man on top of roof wasn't nearly as muscularly dense as the Batman.

"As well as you would expect. I would have thought you'd have been watching."

Robin, the Boy Wonder – who wasn't exactly a boy anymore – crouched on the roof of his cart. "I was in class. I have a chemistry final Monday."

Batman jumped again, spreading his cape out behind him. It became rigid beneath his fingers, and he banked to the left towards the Krank Toys building while Robin glided along behind him. He called out to his apprentice over the rush of the wind. "Right. I'm a little surprised you actually went to class. How is that going?"

The answer was nearly whisked away by the wind.

"Well enough."

Batman sighed, dipping down again so that his toes nearly skimmed the top of a billboard. "I don't pay for well enough, Tim."

Batman could practically hear Robin roll his eyes. "When have I ever had trouble in a class?"

The roofing of the Krank Toys factory clanged gently as Batman settled down on top of it. Behind him, a crunch came as Robin settled on top of the billboard sign. "With the material? Never. I know what happens when you get lazy, though. Or bored."

"Yeah, yeah," he replied, hopping down from the top of the billboard. "I have a date tomorrow night."

"What a coincidence – so do I."

"As Bruce Wayne or Batman?"

Bruce pursed his lips tightly.

"Right. Bruce Wayne. Another model or-

"Vicki Vale."

Robin smirked. "Nice catch, boss."

"I know," he replied, letting his most casual smirk show. The smirk struck an interesting picture on the dark, shadowed face of the Batman. "So, have we heard anything about Harley Quinn yet?"

"No, she's been lying low. Nothing even resembling her MO has popped up since she escaped."

Batman grimaced. "We'll just have to wait for her to come out of hiding then. We'll keep a careful watch on Arkham. No doubt she's working out a way to get the Joker out of solitary."

Robin shifted awkwardly.

His movements didn't go unnoticed. "What?"

Robin stared out over the nearby former GCPD building and picked idly at the glove on his left hand. "I notified Nightwing. He said he might be able to give us some extra help."

"We don't need his help."

A quick response – solid and serious.

The Boy Wonder swore under his breath. "What's the big deal about letting him help? Clearly he's capable."

The Batman fixed his sidekick with a dark glare. "He wanted to go out on his own and get established. I'm giving him the space he wants."

If there was one thing Tim Drake could do, it was stand his ground – even against Bruce Wayne. His shoulders squared and his arms crossed, he turned to face his superior with one of his customary looks of defiance.

"So this is about being bitter?"

The wind had picked up. It howled like a demon in the night.

Batman stood resolute in the growing dark. "We're not having this conversation, Tim. Dick's business is his own now. End of discussion."

He stepped from the ledge and soared past the abandoned GCPD building, Robin following close on his tail.

"This is not the end of this discussion!" Robin yelled over the gust of the wind. "We're gonna talk about this later!"

You can keep your hopes up, Bruce thought, but hope won't help you here.

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**A/N: **As promised, here is an explanation: This story is going to be long. I have five written points of view that will go in order of appearance (although there will only be one viewpoint per chapter). Why do I do this? Because there is always more than one side to a story. This particular story takes place in the year and a half time skip between the _Batman: Arkham Asylum_ and _Batman: Arkham City_ video games. It is not necessarily dependent on the Batman comics, although the creators of the _Arkham_ franchise have done an absolutely spectacular job of integrating the cannon backgrounds of the characters into the games. I will do my absolute damnedest to keep all information and backstory within the games accurate. If you, the reader, feel like I have missed something or have misinterpreted some bit of information, do not hesitate to message me. I'll fix it promptly.

This story will have multiple pairings among the featured canon characters and my original characters. Some of the viewpoints will be told by original characters, and some will be told by canon characters.

The first perspective we see is Bruce Wayne himself. You'll notice that I distinguished between Bruce Wayne as Bruce Wayne and Bruce Wayne as Batman. Even though they are the same person, they are separate entities, both in status and in legend. This, unfortunately, is the root of his problem.

The rating is T right now, but as the story progresses, it will most definitely change to M. I have some delicious fun in store for you all if you stick around! Why do I have to include delicious fun, you ask? Because everyone in this story is an adult (a _consenting_ adult), and that's what adults do! I do it myself and I enjoy it, thank you! (And yes, I am an adult. I can drink and everything.)

Anyway, I hope you'll come along on this journey with me! Farewell, until next time, or welcome! if you've checked ahead from the warning at the beginning!


	2. The Common Virus, An Interlude

_It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive. ~ Earl Warren_

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**Narrator**:

Let's just get this straight right now. There is no love here in Gotham. None.

It doesn't matter who you are. It goes without saying that if you are a horrible person, no one will like you anyway. One mystery solved, many more still exist. You could be poor and an absolutely wonderful person, and still, there is no love for you. You could be rich and a wonderful person, but there is still no love for you. Especially not for you if you're rich.

Hell, look at Bruce Wayne. He's rich. He's what one would call a _philanthropist_, or a person who basically makes a living out of being charitable.

But it doesn't matter, because no one likes him anyway.

Especially us: the downtrodden, the drones, those without personality, the jaded, the hopeless, the other ninety-nine percent of the population, the dweebs, the dorks, anyone who works too much for not enough. People like us don't typically like people like them.

There is no love in Gotham city.

Evidence presented. Witnesses interrogated. Recess. Proof positive. Case closed.

There is no justice in Gotham city. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

Ahem. Sorry. I've been playing _Assassin's Creed_ lately.

Anyway.

I can hear your thoughts. _'But what about Batman? What about Robin? Batgirl? How about the police? The mayor?'_

Cities have laws. Subsequently, they have authority figures that enforce those laws. Counties have laws, too. Have you ever seen the tax rates? States have laws as well, and so do nations, and new countries and old countries and rich countries (where? direct me to the nearest one) and poor countries and communist countries and mixed economy countries and totalitarian societies and beach resorts. Even the planet Earth has laws.

That doesn't mean anyone obeys them.

I mean, have you seen the stack of speeding tickets I've racked up? I'll send you a picture. I'm telling you, I'd be in the one percent with Bruce Wayne if I could drive fifty-five.

Firstly, you have your police, who've done nothing more for me in this city than take half my paycheck for speeding tickets. You have lawyers who will argue my case for a small fee of the other half of my paycheck that I didn't fork over because of the speeding tickets. There's the mayor, who came up with the idea of the buddy system so that I could be busted by TWO –count 'em- coppers when I go seventy in a forty-five zone. There's the city council which backed him up, so it is also just as responsible.

And then you have your friendly neighborhood Batman. What good is he? He's one man. He can't be everywhere in the city at once. Oh, but of course I'm forgetting his sidekicks who are with him ninety percent of the time. With the other ten percent split between Robin and Batgirl, they could probably take out a couple of pickpockets apiece. I guess I forgot to mention the horde of other Bat-Minions floating around. They can track down a purse-snatcher pretty quick nowadays, or so I've heard.

'_But he's saved us from the Joker on multiple occasions!'_

You know what else could do that?

A lethal injection. And that would be permanent.

I'm not saying that Batman isn't effective. The moment his name is mentioned, a collective shiver runs through the spine of every criminal in the city. If you say 'Batman' and look really closely, it looks like the skyscrapers have turned into giant back massagers.

'_But what about the Justice League? The Avengers? The X-Men? The Fantastic Four? The-_

Has anyone ever stuck a bunch of super powerful egotists into the same room together? The self-assurance in the room is nearly palpable. You end up with nearly the collective equivalent of Tony Stark's opinion of himself.

These teams are global, ineffective. In the time it takes for them to stop arguing over who gets what job, the big baddies have already gotten the upper hand. On the off chance that the person in need happens to be local to one of the aforementioned superheroes, its still going to take at least ten minutes for whoever is coming to figure out the address.

There is no justice in Gotham city.

Okay, so we do have a pretty badass local vigilante. The Batman. The baddest of them all. That's cool, I guess. He does nice things. Little kids dress up like him. Teenagers dress up like him. Creepy old men dress up like him.

He's feared. He's respected. He's hated.

He's effective.

Fear can do that.

What no one tends to realize is that the downtrodden have begun to figure out how to fight back without these superheroes. _'Fight back from what? What are you blathering about now?'_

Villains, obviously. Isn't that the basis for any story? For every protagonist, there must be an equal and opposite antagonist.

Wait, that's gravity. Sorry. Still applies.

I digress. It may not be easy to see who the villains and the heroes are. Nothing is ever strictly black and white –there are fifty shades of grey.

Shit, I'm doing it again. Let's see if I can get this right _without_ the use of an excellent pop culture reference.

Nothing is ever black and white. It may not always be clear who the protagonist is or the antagonist. An antagonist may become a protagonist, and vice versa. The only difference is the point of view taken over the person's actions.

And there are a lot of viewpoints.

* * *

**A/N:** This is my interlude, something to kind of give an explanation from the commoner's view of Gotham City and the events leading up to _Arkham City_. We may not ever find out exactly who the narrator is, but every rotation of characters will have an interlude from our anonymous narrator. They seem to be in everyone's business.

Rating will not change for a while, but I'll post a warning about when it will. I already have a few chapters written out.

Also, one final note: this story has also been posted to Ao3, if you prefer that format as opposed to this one.


	3. A Riddle for Your Thoughts, Ch 2

_You can't run away from trouble. There ain't no place that far. ~ Uncle Remus_

* * *

**Dr. Ansley/Riddler:**

Arkham Asylum is not the place anyone wants to be at any given time, much less when the weather is snowy and rainy and inclement. The mansion was covered by a thick blanket of sticky white snow, and every sidewalk and walkway had a crust of slippery, shiny ice coating it. Every exhaled breath was visible, and that was really the only way to tell if the neighboring trundling bundle of snow jacket was still living.

The ferry ride to the island had been astronomically cold, which was a factor that only seasoned Gothamites were truly ready for. Of the two psychiatrists and three medical doctors on board the boat, only one of them - an oncologist who was well into her fifties and smartly, warmly dressed - was ready for the cold ride. The five colleagues huddled together, shivering and trying to share enough warmth to survive the twenty minute ride.

Had Dr. Ansley been attending her regular job at Gotham Teaching Hospital, she dared to say that she wouldn't be freezing to death in the discomfort of a ferry ride. Instead, she would have been languishing in the semi-warmth of her functional Toyota Camry, drawing life-giving caffeine from a stainless-steel thermos. But she wasn't going to Gotham Teaching Hospital, and she wasn't in her car, and she certainly didn't have any coffee on hand. She was going to the Arkham Mansion, and there was really nothing she could do about it.

It often amazed her how few people wanted to help the mentally ill.

Granted, Ansley hadn't volunteered to go to the asylum, but she hadn't said no when she was offered the temporary assignment. The asylum's medical department was understaffed, and after the rash of Titan poisonings found on the island, the inhabitants needed testing and care. As Ansley was led to understand, Arkham had sent pleas for help to the major hospitals and would receive assistance; the problem was that the only hospital to send doctors at that moment in time was Gotham Teaching Hospital. Thus, the plight of understaffing continued.

Her colleagues were rather concerned that they were headed to an asylum for the criminally insane, so Ansley took their fears as her chance to be the voice of reason. Yes, the asylum housed the super-criminals of Gotham. Yes, many of the patients were killers or rapists or miscreants of the same cloth. Yes, they sometimes got loose. But everyone needed medical help, no matter who they were or what they'd done, and the asylum was the institution that would heal both mind and body. Besides, not everyone there was truly a criminal.

Her colleagues grumbled quite a lot.

The ferry slid into port with a hard thud – the crackling of broken ice could be heard even over the din of the engine. The walkway was slicked over with sleet.

Two armed guards were waiting on the dock of the island. Any weapons they may have been carrying were expertly concealed; Ansley couldn't see a gun in plain sight, nor could she detect a bump or ripple in the guards' uniforms. They couldn't carry visible weapons, they explained, because a few of the more unstable patients would freak out. Some of them were extremely hard to calm down. Some would try to take the gun away.

The guards led them to the main entrance of the mansion and began trudging towards the medical facility. Warden – wait, _Mayor _- Sharp was waiting for them in the main conference room, they said. He had schedules, paperwork - a wonderful pep talk. The sarcasm in the words of the guards was palpable in the vapor of their breaths.

Two more guards stood in front of the medical center, just in front of a cluster of frozen rhododendrons. As their colleagues walked up to them, they sent knowing glances in way of the doctors. Their visible eyes cut to the visitors and back to the guards, questioning and skeptic. These doctors shouldn't be here. They'll just be killed. They aren't trained for the nutcases here.

The escorting guards nodded, and the one closest to the outside mechanism produced an ID card seemingly from thin air. The gloveless fingers clutching the card were turning blue, and Ansley had the faintest impression that he had forgone gloves to perform the little from-thin-air trick. Whatever his intentions, it looked like his pinkie finger had already succumbed to frostbite.

The card was swiped, and the double doors flung inwards to allow the group access. The medical wing didn't look very...medical. It had been built with functionality in mind as opposed to cleanliness. Or the janitors were lacking. Whichever. The tiles lining every inch of the floor and walls were dingy grey. The doors were lined with sensors that were meant to shock intruders (an ID card was needed, which none of them had). A dust bunny the size of a small cat languished in the far corner of the front room, ready to attack trespassers with uncontrollable sneezing at a moment's notice.

Leaving little puffs of grime in his wake, Warden Quincy Sharp stepped forward, emerging from an encasing cocoon of smut and self-assurance. Ansley had never personally spoken with the warden, but his campaign commercials were enough to garner mistrust and a healthy amount of disdain. His very presence was reflected in the neglected hallways - grimy, slimy, and in need of work.

The Warden's glasses flashed under the encompassing white lights. "Welcome to Arkham Asylum, my esteemed guests."

_New employees_. _Fresh meat._

"We have quite a few rules and regulations here at the mansion, and I do expect you all to memorize and adhere to them. To the letter. This is for your personal safety and protection."

_You are a liability._

"In your offices, you will find files on your desk for your personal information, as well as schedules for which patients you are to treat and screen and the complete book of our rules and regulations. I trust that your code of ethics is impeccable, and behavior will not be a problem."

_Don't screw up here. I won't deal with it._

The Warden turned his back on the doctors and stepped forward into the open door from which he had emerged. "If you will follow me into the conference room, we will commence the orientation meeting."

The conference room followed the same pattern as the rest of the medical wing. It was gray – gray tile, gray ceiling, gray chairs. The only break from the monotonous monochrome was the large oak desk placed smack in the center of the room. It offset some of the gloom, though not enough to make the room particularly inviting. At each chair, there was a manila folder, complete with a name at the top – so that each of the doctors was given an assigned seat.

And though Ansley hoped that she would not be given the seat next to Warden Sharp, there was no chance.

Her file folder was on the Warden's right-hand side. She made sure to scoot as far away as possible without imposing on Dr. Barden's personal space, but she could still feel the air of pompous self-assurance closing in on her as a result of sitting too close to the warden. His smell was encompassing – it was the scent of outdated opinions and old-fashioned methods. Maybe a hint of dust and talcum powder, too, but Ansley wasn't keen to prove it.

"Now, if you'll all turn to page twenty-three, we'll begin on the section of temporary employees…"

The subsequent hour was a blur, and was filled with a spirited attempt to remain conscious by popping chewing gum and doodling inappropriate figurines all over the inside of her personnel folder. She was very nearly reprimanded when Sharp looked over to see Ansley depicting a man bending his partner over a short string of text that was, apparently, supposed to represent a table. She covered it up by flipping the page seconds before he could register the stick figures, and from there stuck to stick men riding skateboards instead of fucking each other.

"Now if you'll follow me, I shall personally escort you all to your offices. Don't forget, everyone's office is to the immediate left of their examination room and should be locked and coded at all times. As I've mentioned, some of our more lucid inmates have a terrible tendency to sneak out of their cells…"

Dr. Barden, a tall, thickly build man with heavy shoulders and enormous hands, bent down to her level which, for him, meant bending nearly double. "Remind me why any of us agreed to take this job."

"I thought we agreed that it was a desire to help others and that the pay bonus wasn't bad," she whispered up to him, holding her folder against the side of her mouth. "Now, I don't think any amount of money in the world was worth sitting through Warden Blowhard's lectures and tending his merry band of murderous maleficents."

Barden shook his head, "I can handle criminals. I was a paramedic at Blackgate for seven years, but I'll take on Killer Croc as a patient before I'll sit through another speech again. The worst part of this is being treated like we're stupid just because we aren't psychiatrists."

Ansley stared after Sharp, contemplating on exactly how hard she's have to throw the folder in her hands to knock the son of a bitch out. "Hey, if we don't show up here, we still have a job at GTH. None of the other hospitals have the funding to send doctors right now, so they'll have to respect us eventually. We're not expendable."

Barden shifted his bulk visibly, shambling behind the group like a bear. "Then why do I get the sneaking suspicion that everyone thinks we are?"

Ansley clenched her teeth together. Arkham definitely wasn't the best place to work, and the Medical wing wasn't terribly welcoming – it wasn't her place to critique the décor, though. This wasn't meant to be a long term job anyway: six months was all she was here for, and she had the shortest tenure of all her colleagues. She couldn't be gone too long from the teaching hospital; she was a hematologist, so most patients were sent to her first for the preliminary diagnosis.

However, the level of traffic flowing her way meant that she was also going to be the most overworked doctor here.

Her office was the first stop, and as promised, her examination room was to the left. The ID badge taped to the front of her personnel folder had to be scanned in order to access her office, but it took a few tries for the contraption to register her badge. Incompetence was truly a great first impression – now the guards, Sharp, and any onlooker would just assume that she couldn't even handle a scanner. How was she a doctor? Why was her face so red? Was she sweating?

With her tongue poked out and an irritable, shaking hand, she finally managed to get the door scanner to read her badge. She huffed, blowing a strand of loose hair back from her face. She hated electronics. For whatever reason, nothing even relatively mechanical would work properly for her. Typically, she chalked it up to an absent-minded predilection, but now she just thought that she was slightly inept. Working with tools that _didn't_ beep was her specialty.

"I'm fine. I got this," she assured her host, glaring disdainfully as the smirks and smiles of her colleagues (it wasn't _that_ funny, okay).

The group walked on without her, and she entered her new office.

It wasn't so bad. Oak paneling, a big mahogany desk, empty bookcases (perfect), and a nice rolling leather chair. It was warm instead of gray, dripping with brown and red undertones, and surprisingly cozy. There was a supply closet in one corner, though whether it actually had supplies in it was rather questionable.

The one thing that could possibly have ruined the nice departure from the monotone world outside, of course, sat on her desk. Paperwork.

A foot-tall stack of manila-enveloped, signed, sealed, delivered paperwork.

Oh, how she prayed it was case files. Lots and lots of case files.

On top of the stack lay a neat, plain schedule. It was a thin piece of computer paper, hardly even worth being tacked up on her board. Black lines ran lengthwise, and strands of text clouded and cluttered the otherwise neat page. Names upon names upon names filled the tiny blocks, along with the intended tests. Three patients a day, every day, for the next six months. Some would be seen weekly, some every other week, some once a month. Some would filter in and out of her examination room and never darken the doorway again.

It seemed as though whoever made the schedule had at least attempted to spread the concentration of supercriminals around. The next day, she was scheduled to give physicals to two former Blackgate inmates who, upon reading their case files, had been raped viciously and relentlessly at the prison and now suffered PTSD so acutely that they couldn't come within two miles of the prison. She was supposed to give them physicals. _Physicals._ They'd rip her face off before she could get near them. Both had already done it once to other doctors.

It seemed that Ansley's schedule was filled primarily with Blackgate prisoners and regular-security inmates of the asylum. Normal – as normal as could be said for the asylum – inmates would be filtered through once, a couple were scheduled for weekly blood tests to sample the level of medication circulation through the bloodstream, and a small smattering was listed under her primary, permanent care.

And of course, it wouldn't be the most notorious mental health rehabilitation center in the nation if she wasn't given a group of four unstable supercriminals to poke with needles. Poison Ivy was the first supercriminal she would see. The asylum wanted blood testing. Apparently, she was at high risk for developing the Titan condition and was already showing symptoms. Yep, blood testing was just what the _plant_ _lady_ needed.

As it stood, Poison Ivy was the only notable patient that week to be under her care. Next week was a vastly different story: "Two-Face" Harvey Dent for monthly physicals, the first of which was on Tuesday; Jervis Tetch – the Mad Hatter – on Wednesdays for weekly routine blood tests; The Joker for the same reason on Thursday, with a little red star next to his name to show that he had serious health concerns.

As it were, they had given the hematologist the patients with the highest risk of possible blood conditions. Oh joy of joys.

Upon reading the case files for her most notable permanent patients, she took the liberty of creating a set of her own notes compiled from the set already given to her. It would be a preliminary start, and of course would be altered as needed in the face of the changing moods of her patients.

With Poison Ivy, Ansley didn't expect much trouble. The asylum wouldn't assign male doctors to tend her because, historically, she had poisoned them or harmed them in some vicious manner when left unguarded. Female doctors were typically left to do their duties, and she was less inclined to seduce or resist them. Hence, possibly half the reason she had been assigned to Ansley.

Two-Face was reportedly highly stoic, and he wouldn't respond to much – if any – small talk. The best method with him was to get his appointments over with quickly. He refused to acknowledge any name other than Two-Face, but he typically did not exhibit overly threatening or violent behavior. He would be lightly sedated, and would be accompanied by an armed guard.

Jervis Tetcht was reported to be usually very pleasant, and was often highly sedated by some type of drug or another. Ironically, it seemed to be drugs that he helped to create that sedated him. It was hinted in the footnotes of the case file that brushing up on the novel _Alice in Wonderland_ would foster trust in him far more quickly than without the knowledge of the legendary novel. The asylum wanted the level of drugs in his system monitored.

Joker was a menace to any and every doctor who had ever tried to treat him, and was usually passed along very quickly. Due to his deteriorating health, he was to be carefully monitored, no matter how badly he behaved. Unlike the other patients, he would be restrained, sedated, and attended by an armed guard at all times.

Beneath the pile of case files was an employee guidebook. She glanced at it carelessly, pushing it over to the side for a later hour. Whatever was in it had already probably been touched upon at Sharpe's orientation meeting, but she'd skim just in case.

"_Would you fucking move?!_"

The violent screaming in the hallway startled her. The voice was gruff, male – probably a guard.

Ansley hated yelling. Whoever yelled was knocking on her door, though, and she stood rather stiffly before answering it. The door creaked restlessly and opened to reveal the guard who shouted.

"Are you one of the new doctors?" he asked, perturbed. He rubbed the back of his head where a large knot was beginning to form – it was purplish and irritably red against the hue of his skin.

She grimaced, raking a hand through her hair. "Well, I did pay a few hundred-thousands dollars to have M.D. tacked to the back of my name, or is my name not on the door yet?"

The guard rolled his eyes. "Just what this place needs, another smart-ass doctor."

"What seems to be the problem, officer?" she replied, crossing her arms. "Do you need a bandage and an ice pack?"

"You're needed in exam room four," the guard said, itching the back of his neck. "And yeah, an ice pack would be helpful."

Ansley relented. He was just doing his job. "Well, if you'll escort me there, I'll find you one. What happened anyway?"

They walked while the guard talked. "The inmate in question took a swing at me and got real lucky. Seems that he hasn't taken his meds in nearly a week and the nurses are having some trouble getting the injection to him. We're trying to restrain him now."

"I've never seen a nurse that couldn't poke a hole in someone," Ansley reproved. She could hear more yelling down the hallway, and every crash and bump made her skin crawl.

The guard chuckled. "You really are new."

The scene in exam room four was one to behold. Two more guards other than the one escorting her were smushing a man the size and density of a brick house into the floor – and failing rather spectacularly at making him lie still. The nurses (three of them) were corralled into a corner, one with an enormous syringe in hand.

"Make sure you keep his back still," Ansley snapped at the escort. She stalked over and snatched the syringe from the nurse brandishing the weapon. She nudged one of the guards with the back of her hand. "Pull down his pants and budge up."

He obliged, and when the barest amount of fleshy area came forth, she swiped an alcohol pad over the bare section and plunged the needle into the inmate's backside. He howled and thrashed, and the guards just barely held him in place. She pushed the plunger down as quickly as she could; it wasn't easy – the liquid was viscous and the man was still rolling like a truck tire.

The medicine took a good ten minutes to take effect, and by then the guards were drenched in sweat and the nurses had disappeared. Ansley had slapped a bandage on the inmate's ass and taped it down liberally – it was one of those shots where the guy would probably have trouble sitting for a few hours. He had stopped howling at the very least, and was now just beginning to calm down from the panic.

Ansley tapped the shoulder of the guard closest to her. She whispered just loud enough for the man to hear, "What's his name?"

"Dawes," the guard replied breathlessly. Beads of sweat popped near his hairline.

"Thanks," she said briefly.

She circled around to the inmate's head, shoes clicking, and bent down on one knee. He stared up at her, eyes feverish and defiant. The medicine was slowly clouding his eyes, but he was still lucid enough to fling a strand of colorfully creative curses at her. She pursed her lips and waited for his attack to pass.

"You done?" she asked, plowing on before he could start up again. "Good. Mr. Dawes, I don't know _why_ you thought that spitting out your medication for a week was a good idea, but believe me, swallowing a pill is much easier than getting this nice .22 gauge needle jammed into your glutes. Now, this shot is going to knock you out for a few hours, and after it wears off, I expect you to take your meds like these doctors have recommended. Otherwise, I'm going to stick this needle in your butt again."

Dawes slurred. "I don't need no damn pills, and I ain't afraid of you, woman."

"I didn't imply that you should be," she said, standing up primly. "I'm advising you to take your medicine for your own welfare, sir."

"I'm telling you, I don't need no witch doctor shit!" he snapped. His eyes were unfocused, and he'd finally stopped struggling. The guards were all standing now, and they hoisted the inmate up long enough to get a set of handcuffs on him.

_Getting a grown man to take his medicine is like getting a brick wall to talk._

Ansley followed the trio of guards and the now-unconscious inmate out of the exam room. If nothing else, she knew that her temporary job at Arkham Asylum would, at the very least, be highly entertaining.

* * *

"Hold still!"

"No, damn it!"

"Bitch, what did I just tell you?"

_His words were like liquor spilling from his throat. There was whiskey in the air._

"Craig, please, you're drunk."

"What did I just say? I told you to shut up and hold still, now do as I say before I knock the shit out of you!"

"Go to hell!"

"I'll meet you down there, girl."

_Not the face, never the face. Even drunk, he was smarter than that._

* * *

Ansley was, for the first time in seemingly forever, grateful that Gotham City was freezing in December. She suspected that it wouldn't be the last time she was grateful for the cold, drafty halls of the Asylum. A doctor's examination room was supposed to be cold, but today the temperature in the rooms kept a thin sheen of ice along all the metal bits and pieces. The subzero temperatures in the asylum allowed her to dress appropriately for the occasion.

She hated questions almost as much as she hated yelling.

The first inmate she saw that day was a former Blackgate prisoner with severe acute PTSD. She was unable to perform the full physical on him, but she did get a good blood sample. The same went for her second patient who was, unfortunately, in the same boat as her first patient. Neither inmate could stand to be touched too much anymore.

She was finished with her break, and now she was to examine Poison Ivy.

The prisoner and the guard were already in the exam room when she arrived. Even green, Ivy was the most beautiful woman Ansley had ever seen. She was tiny, waifish, with red hair like the petals of a flower. The hospital gown didn't do her justice – it draped her small frame like a burlap sack. She sat primly on the edge of the sanitary paper.

Yes, Ivy was incredibly beautiful, and yes, she smelled like rose petals; the problem was that her emerald skin was marked with patches of rotting black pits and angry forest-green scabs. As Ansley had been warned, the plight of the Titan virus was an ugly thing.

Ansley sat on the rolling stool across from her. Ivy's eyes were passive, devoid of any sort of real regard for the woman before her. The guard in the corner watched idly, arms crossed, not expecting any sort of real threat.

She shuffled a stack of pages on her clipboard. "Dr. Pamela Isley. Is this your preferred name, or would you rather I address you differently?"

Her voice was high and melodic, but her tone was as dead as autumn leaves. "I prefer Ivy."

Ansley nodded, scratching a note on her clipboard. "Ivy. Have you already been informed as to why you were placed under my care?"

"No."

Deadpan. Uninterested.

Ansley smirked. "Are interested as to why you're under my care?"

"Not particularly, no."

"At least you're honest," Ansley replied. She set the clipboard to the side. "I'm a hematologist – a blood doctor. I'm sure you've been told that the Titan virus is carried in the blood; my job here is to monitor the progression of the virus and manage it for you as best I can."

"I see," the woman replied, still disinterested. Ansley was at a loss as to how she could be detached in the face of her own mortality.

Ansley pulled down a pair of rubber gloves from the box hanging on the wall. They were powdered – not her favorite. She produced a butterfly needle from the sanitary box underneath the cabinet.

"Well, if you have no further objections, I'm going to need a blood sample. Well, in your case, I guess it's a chlorophyll sample."

The following physical was relatively painless on everyone's part – Poison Ivy didn't say a word, and neither did the guard. Ansley explained her procedures, though her patient was apathetic. As the minutes ticked by, Ivy seemed to become more restless – fidgety, downcast eyes, and Ansley could swear the woman was sweating green fluid. Some of the rotten black spots smelled sickeningly sweet, though she did what she could to dress them.

As the examination concluded, the guard slapped a pair of handcuffs back on the emerald woman and hauled her out, though still no word of protest escaped her lips.

Ansley was now one hundred percent certain Ivy had been sweating green fluid; on the sanitary paper, viscous green dots reflected the baleful gray light of the exam room. She took a cotton swab and dabbed at one of the larger spots, sliding the swab back into the tube after thoroughly wiping the area. Whatever it was, the substance might tell her how to go about treating the dying Ivy.

She carried a stack of patient notes with her to the nurses' desk at the front. The petite black-haired woman who did the filing – Darla Cyrus – took them from her, smacking her teeth at the workload. Her nails tapped a vicious staccato on the keyboard in front of her.

Darla tore her eyes away from the screen for just a moment. "I hate to have to ask you this, doc, but do you got time to see another patient?"

The clock above her head read one-thirty.

"Yeah, I've got time," Ansley replied, scrunching a hand through her hair. "Which patient?"

Darla handed a thick manila folder over the desk, blue-painted nails scritch-scratching against the paper. "The Riddler."

Ansley sighed. The folder in her hands was dead weight. "Lovely. Wanna tell me why Dr. Coley isn't doing his job?"

"Eh. His nine o'clock punched him in the jaw – pretty nasty, I heard," Darla said, spinning in her chair. She slid Poison Ivy's records into a drawer that had a heavy black lock on it. "He's at the hospital having his jaw wired shut, so we're trying to get his patients organized for the moment."

Ansley nodded. "Well, I'm a nine-to-fiver and I've only got three patients a day. Feel free to give me a few."

Penciled-in eyebrows edged dangerously close to a jet-black hairline. "You're actually offering to take extra work? Is it for the overtime or are you actually a saint?"

"I'm a doctor – I don't get paid overtime," Ansley replied, biting the inside of her cheek. "And I'm mean as a snake. Ain't no saints here."

Darla tutted, her candy-paint orange lips smacking together again. "Careful there, doc. Keep talking like that and you'll get stuck in here for suicidal tendencies or something."

Ansley turned away from the desk and headed back to Dr. Coley's examination room. She called over her shoulder, "I've heard this place has a tendency to drive people crazy."

* * *

**A/N: **Here's the third point of view, Dr. Ansley. The Riddler will come in the next time her perspective is focused upon. In fact, this is partly his perspective as well. He is, after all, a genius.


	4. A Bird in the Hand, Ch 3

_The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem. ~ Theodore Rubin_

* * *

The darkness was alive in Gotham, and every which way Charlie turned, shadows chased him. It was never truly bright in Gotham, not when everyone was a criminal in some form or fashion, but nowhere was the darkness more playful than inside Arkham City (or rather the area sanctioned to become the expansive prison). Bats and creepy-crawlies hung in the eaves of the dilapidated buildings. Huge cracks were beginning to form in the foundations and sidewalks of the prison. Not a single blade of grass could be found in the whole facility. It was like everything with the will to live had slowly withered away and died.

Charlie was working for the Joker that night, surveying the inside of the old Sionis Steel Mill; all of the big-leaguers were already calling dibs on territory in the prison and the Steel Mill was the perfect place for the Joker.

The Sionis Steel Mill held lots of potential death traps. Every few feet protruded an exposed wire or a whining electromagnet. Big rusting crane hooks dangled heavily from iron chains thick enough to choke an elephant; the ceiling occasionally let out a pathetic groan in protestation of the suspended weights as if it was threatening to give way and crush anyone in the room. Boilers dotting the assembly lines belched oily breaths and radiated heat.

Anyone who knew the history of the Sionis Steel Mill knew that it really technically belonged to Black Mask, as did most of the buildings in the Industrial sector, but it seemed that Black Mask wasn't betting on getting stuck in Arkham City. Rumor had it he'd already paid off Hugo Strange.

One of Charlie's buddies, a man named Porkchop who was as thick and tall as the broad side of a school bus, wrenched down the lever to release the thick oily smoke from the steel production boilers into the chimney pipes. No steel was being processed; they were opening the chimney hatches to ward off any, well, _bat infestations. _There was no way of getting in the main chimney now; the wonderful advantage of the steel mill was that smoke drifted out of the chimney pipe off and on even though it was abandoned, so no one would be the wiser.

"All of this smoke really draws attention," Porkchop grumbled, studying the little dials on the boilers. One in particular, a glass face slightly larger than the surrounding dials, squealed loudly for attention. "You don't think we'll get caught, do you?"

"Yeah, right," Charlie said. He checked the safety on his gun – on, as it should be. He didn't need any suspicious accidents. He could have chuckled if the timing wouldn't have been deplorable. Right, _suspicious_. "This place has been empty for years. The only way we'll run into anyone is if Two-Face starts looking to expand his territory or Black Mask stops being so nice."

The Joker had taken the entire south-east corner of the prison for himself. Part of the run-down area of Gotham had once been a place of happiness and merriment, an amusement park, but it was no longer in business. Too many years of citations and little snot-nosed kids getting hurt on rides and mommies with control issues flinging lawsuits and dangling puppet lawyers every which-way had gotten in the way of merriment. Not to mention the park was right next to the mob-run industrial park; the ever-present threat of death and dismemberment really put a damper on business.

Porkchop pulled the second lever on the gear box, releasing another huge billowing sheet of greasy smoke. "I don't know, man. Dom said he's seen the Bat skulking around out here."

Charlie chuckled. The only way a person saw the Bat was if the Bat wanted them to wake up in a hospital the next day. "Dom's full of shit, dude. Why would Batman be here?"

Charlie could actually think of a few reasons why Batman would be there, and a few more reasons why he _should_ be there. It wasn't like Charlie deluded himself into thinking that he was working for a noble cause. He wasn't. He was working for money, and that was as noble as his cause got.

It was one of three jobs, actually.

"Hey, don't laugh!" Porkchop snapped. He was sweating visibly, but Charlie doubted that all of it came from the sheer heat. "What if someone knows we're here? What if we got ratted out? I don't wanna get my ass kicked!"

Porkchop hesitated in pulling the third lever, so Charlie snatched the final lever on the gear box down. "This is a prison, Porkie – it just doesn't have any walls yet. This is where we belong. Batman's not looking for anyone around here. He's got bigger criminals to worry about."

"Don't say I didn't warn you, then," Porkchop replied. He hefted his gun, stalking towards the door. "Let's go. We gotta find the switchbox for the office next. Boss J wants the electricity up and running in the office."

Charlie Brack was a man of simple pleasures, and he tried to stick to the four main components of his passions: cars, food, women, and family.

If it had an engine, Charlie could fix it, though he liked classic cars above all – especially American muscle. He drove a 1969 Dodge Charger, red, with all the trimmings. He was a jack of all trades by nature, but cars were his passion. The Charger was the epitome of his deep infatuation. Her gleaming chrome fenders and rims were the product of long hours rolling around on top of a rotting old Wally-World skateboard. Her purr was the heartbeat deep in his chest, pumping his sweat and blood and tears through her engine. Every nickel and dime, every moment spent out in the blazing heat was just a bump in the road of their happy romance.

Charlie liked a good, hot meal at the end of the day. He was a meat-and-potatoes man really, but his personal poison was his mother's cupcakes (and if you tell a soul, he'll put papercuts in the webbing of all your digits until you die of shock). He wasn't a bad cook himself, but he liked to leave the food business to the people who really knew how to run it.

He really loved women, especially cheap dates and the girls in the skin rags from the convenience stores. Don't think he's a misogynist – that was just the type of women he preferred. He loved women of any class, color, or background. He loved women he met in bars, in clubs, at the grocery store – he just loved them. Not just the sex, either – he liked to think of himself as a connoisseur of the fairer sex. The inner workings of the feminine psyche baffled and intrigued him endlessly.

And even though his family was the textbook definition of unlovable, it was the most important thing in the world to him.

With that last bit of information, it then becomes rather easy to understand why he was in the position he was in.

He was paid to hold a gun.

He was paid double to tell why he was holding a gun.

That was the thing about the Penguin - he paid a hell of a lot better than the Joker did. And he had dental.

His mother was – had been – a single parent to five sons; Charlie was the only one who still came around to see her. As far as Charlie was concerned, she was truly a saint; he and his four brothers had to be the worst bunch of boys to be born to someone so singularly good. Two sons were in rehab for drugs, one son was in prison for gun trafficking, one son was washing dishes at a restaurant somewhere in southern California, and Charlie was a double agent for one of the biggest crime bosses in Gotham. Yeah, all the relatives said Shawnda Brack failed her kids, but Charlie knew better.

Charlie knew a lot more than anyone gave him credit for.

His mother taught him a lot of things. How to cook was one thing; his mother firmly believed the old proverb of _if you give a man a fish_. He could sew like a pro, and heaven help the person who poked fun at him for it. He couldn't recall a single person who tried to walk all over him who didn't at least know who they stepped on.

The most important thing she taught him, though, was how to stay two steps ahead of everyone else.

The Penguin most graciously extended dental to listed family members. Granted, if an employee intended to ever retire or double-cross Mr. Cobblepot, they would most likely find that they didn't need dental. Retirement was never something Charlie thought he would need, and he knew who paid his bills; he and his mom really used that dental plan. It was the very least he could do for his mother, and he was determined to do more.

He was, at that moment, doing just that.

The Joker had a few very specific modifications to be added to his new office in the Steel Mill. He wanted the back wall smashed in and the entire office extended. He wanted a paintjob (the standard purple and green motif, of course – lots of extraneous lights and baubles). He absolutely had to have a king size bed, the specification of which disturbed most of the renovation team due to the obvious implications. New showers, no brass doorknobs for some horrible reason (and it was really freaking hard to find non-brass doorknobs), and something to make the automatic doors _swoosh_ like on _Star Trek_.

So, for all these lovely, lavish renovations, the Joker needed a jack of all trades to do the dirty work. Charlie was more than happy to oblige the clown, because that meant that The Penguin would have a grunt to get the skinny on the building plans, making Charlie infinitely more important in the Bird's eye. This deep necessity for all things covert and intellectual meant that Charlie got a lot more overtime. The Penguin was more than happy to support Charlie's decisions to help the Joker. Charlie was more than happy to accept the Penguin's paycheck.

As soon as Porkchop found the switchbox to turn on the electricity for the managerial office, Charlie was attacking the back wall with a sledgehammer. He alone had the blueprints for the current building, and he alone was the one who would make the changes to the blueprints. He alone would recreate the blueprints from short-term memory and hand them to the Penguin himself.

His usefulness as an employee bridged on the deliverance of the documents to the Penguin.

Porkchop had turned the power off on all of the grids connected to the manager's office – he had been an electrician before prison. He had to check the wiring to make sure that the lights wouldn't flicker in precious Boss J's new domicile. "You know the boss wants a strobe light in his bedroom?"

Charlie huffed, burying the sledgehammer into the splintering wood of the back wall. Of _course_ he did. Charlie got the rather distinct feeling that either the boss had some alternative kinks, or he was just requesting this stuff to freak them out. Somehow, the second one seemed the most plausible; the boss was sick like that. "Well, look at him and his girlfriend. You know they're probably into some kinky shit."

Porkchop gagged, "Dude, I gotta put down carpet. I can't have vomit under the swatches."

"Since when do you use words like _swatches_?" Charlie mocked, grunting heavily as he ripped down another huge chunk of splintered wood. There were wood lice between the boards, but he couldn't be bothered to deal with them just yet. His job tonight was just to get the wall torn down. "And get a thicker skin. There's no telling what the Joker is going to have this place outfitted with by the time Move-In Day rolls around."

Porkchop shivered. His shudder caused the floorboards to vibrate minutely. "Let's just get out of here, man. It's creepy."

The office wasn't pleasant, but he wouldn't have called it creepy. It was rotting in a few places because of the disuse and there was enough dust to choke a giraffe, but it wasn't creepy. The room didn't have the distinct silence that accompanied creepy buildings; throughout the facility, partners and trios worked steadily getting the Steel Mill ready for habitation. It was noisy, though not overbearingly, but it still didn't constitute creepy silence.

"Grow a spine, Pork," Charlie said simply, tossed aside the final chuck of wall. He had the terrible urge to sneeze, but he felt that his fellow thugs would probably take that as a weakness. You know, like they didn't have allergies, too.

Porkchop scrunched his face up in aggravation. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a jerk?"

A loud crunching noise emanated from the doorway of the office, which was odd, seeing as the doorway doubled as the observation deck of the floor below and was fifteen feet off the ground. And they had the ladder in the manager's office with them.

"Quit starin' at me like that! Haven't ya ever seen a girl with a giant mallet before?" Harley Quinn said, lifting herself up into the office. She was dragging an enormous wooden mallet behind her, her weapon of choice. Despite the mallet's size, it never seemed to give her any trouble due to its weight. She hefted it up over her shoulder easily and surveyed the room with those luminescent blue eyes of hers. "You bozos didn't think that I'd just let you decorate mine and Mistsa J's room without supervision, did ya?"

"That's exactly what we thought, actually," Charlie replied, shrugging. He was a big guy. The worst she could do to him with that mallet was to break a few bones and cause some heavy internal bleeding, but she wouldn't hit him in the manager's office. She didn't want the smell of blood in her future love shack.

She glared at him. It was hot inside the office, and her greasepainted face dripped with sweat. The black greasepaint around her eyes ran oily and feathery in the fine lines she was developing in the hollows of her face. The inky blackness was smeared part of the way down her cheeks. If anything, the sloppy makeup job made her seem less cartoonish – far more visceral that a girl playing a man's game. Harley wasn't a doll on the Joker's shelf – she was a general, a warrior in the name of nothing more than pure anarchy.

The Joker didn't leave just anyone in charge during his periods of incarceration in Arkham Asylum. He didn't leave a two-ton musclehead in a wackjob clown costume. He left Harley Quinn in charge, and for good reason.

She was one scary bitch.

Porkchop was sweating like a pig, and his moisture output increased tenfold in the five seconds before she responded. He didn't care how small Harley looked, he didn't even care that she was a girl. He had seen Harley gut men twice her size and walk away without a scratch. There was no way in hell he would ever say anything out of the way to her, or in all actuality, he would never say a word to her at all other than 'yes, ma'am.'

"Well, I guess you thought wrong," Harley replied, gently resting her mallet against the office wall. She glared daggers at Charlie, but didn't seem to be contemplating murder yet. Torture, yes. Infinite amounts of excruciating pain pouring from every infinitesimal orifice, of course. Death, not yet. "Now hurry up, that wall's gotta come down before we even think about gettin' the carpet!"

You see, Charlie understood something about Harley that few, if any, other thugs understood. Harley was smart. One of the many facts surrounding the dear psychopath was that she had been a talented young psychiatrist at Arkahm. She was a doctor, and dummies didn't get to be doctors. Harley knew who made her bed and when she needed to lie down in it. She wouldn't harm the 'help' as long as they were doing their jobs effectively – even if they got a little mouthy. For that reason, she smacked them around with the mallet instead of waving a gun at them. The mallet provided concrete evidence that she would hurt them, and that she had the _potential_ to kill them – even if she lacked the desire at the time.

That didn't mean she wouldn't try to kill him later, but Charlie didn't plan on sticking around with the Joker when Arkham City opened. He and Harley shared something in common: he knew which bed he had to lie in, too.

* * *

**A/N:** I'd love some feedback on what you guys think of my characters so far.


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